Organisation profile

The everyday tools you use – the phone in your pocket, the train on your morning commute, the car you drive – each relies on ambitious and innovative engineers. At the School of Mechanical and Design Engineering, we're helping solve societal problems through creative and practical engineering solutions, combined with technical academic knowledge.

Our engineers make a positive difference locally and globally through their work and research – from using artificial intelligence to improve powered wheelchairs, to creating more efficient solar panels and lightweight manufacturing materials.

We're driven to make the world a better place through smarter thinking and design. Our leading experts and postgraduate researchers produce innovative, results-driven research to improve technology. Our REF 2014 results prove we're moving in the right direction - 61% of our research was rated as internationally excellent.

We take part in collaborative, cross-disciplinary research. We're part of a team working on a project called FLOWERS, funded by the European Regional Development fund to use plant fibres to produce more sustainable plastics that can be recycled.

We've also received funding from Innovate UK, the Leverhulme Trust, the Royal Academy of Engineering, Interreg, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Our areas of expertise include:

• Biomedical engineering
• Materials engineering